Monday, May 26, 2014

Kangaroo pizza and quantum computing

The day was spent at the University of New South Wales, where we learned about quantum computing. Later, we visited the Harbour Bridge and tried some of the local pizza specialties.

After a day of free time, it was back to school on Monday.

We went to the University of New South Wales and visited the Australian National Fabrication Facility. This facility is a network of open-access labs that includes 19 universities.

Here we talked about quantum computing research in Australia. This technology can be used for data security, decryption, killer apps, integrating circuits, and high performance computing. Spin-state quantum computing gives more energy states for information to be stored than the classical bit.

After we were given presentations by faculty members, we took a tour of the labs and clean rooms.

Once we got back to the city, a few students went to the top of one of the pillars on the Harbour Bridge. We made it just in time before it closed to see the sun setting on the city. The pillar was almost as high as the top of the Harbour Bridge. The view was fantastic!

After the pillar, we passed the time waiting for the rest of the group by watching the light show on the opera house. This is part of Sydney's Vivid festival that is still going on. The light show cycles throughout the night.

We met up with the rest of the group to have dinner at a place with all different types of exotic pizzas.

We tried the "Coat of Arms" pizza, which was half kangaroo, half emu. The emu and kangaroo were chosen for the Australian coat of arms because they are both animals that cannot go backwards. We also ordered crocodile pizza, which was an interesting combination of crocodile and coconut.